To Huckabee or not to Huckabee
EmailAs he competes with evangelical and socially conservative voters, former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee has seemed to take some rhetorical steps rightward this week.
In an interview with Beliefnet, Huckabee — surging in polls and now tied for first with Sen. John McCain here in South Carolina — compared same sex marriage to polygamy, pedophilia, and bestiality.
"I don’t think that’s a radical view to say we’re going to affirm marriage," he said. "I think the radical view is to say that we’re going to change the definition of marriage so that it can mean two men, two women, a man and three women, a man and a child, a man and animal. Again, once we change the definition, the door is open to change it again. I think the radical position is to make a change in what’s been historic."
He also seemed to belie some of his liberal record and rhetoric on illegal immigration yesterday by signing a pledge from Numbers USA that states that:
"I pledge to oppose amnesty or any other special path to citizenship for the millions of foreign nationals unlawfully present in the United States. As President, I will fully implement enforcement measures that, over time, will lead to the attrition of our illegal immigrant population. I also pledge to make security of our borders a top priority of my administration."
Numbers USA says "Governor Huckabee understands his pledge to mean that:
"1. The 12 million illegal aliens now here will have to go home.
"2. They will not get any legal status while here that allows them to remain long-term.
"3. Once in their home countries, they may apply for re-admittance to the U.S. as immigrants, visitors or temporary workers through normal channels.
"4. But they will not receive any special privileges on the basis of their having been in the U.S. illegally, such as being put to the front of a line.
"5. There will be no new categories or programs through which they may re-enter.
"6. There will not be an expansion of green cards in any existing categories that will speed up their movement to the front of the line."
This just doesn’t square with Huckabee’s record on this issue as governor — and his rhetoric on the matter until last month when he decided he needed to sound more conservative on this issue. (The Chicago Tribune has a good look at that shift HERE.)
One other Hucka-moment of note –
As you may recall, the Confederate flag was a big issue down here in 2000. As ABC News’ Kevin Chupka reports, Huckabee yesterday said, "You don’t want anyone from out of state comin’ down and telling you what to do with your flag. In fact, if somebody came to Arkansas and told us what to do with our flag we’d tell them where to put the pole."
But he wouldn’t personally say what he thought about the flag.
What do you think?
– jpt
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Pandering to voters seemed to work wonders for Romney in Michigan and appears to be working for Huckabee in South Carolina. If every state that holds an early Republican Primary continues to vote for the candidate that is willing to say anything to get a vote, the GOP will find themselves with a candidate that will spend the entire general election defending comments that may please the conservative base, but will turn off every voter to the left of Sean Hannity.
Posted by: Blake Fry | January 18, 2008, 9:26 am 9:26 am
Blake first and foremost Huckabee is a Liberal not a Conservative!! See the republicans do not have their candidates sign oaths to the party like the Democrats (Nazis) do! So unfortunately we sometimes get Liberals posing as Republicans and in such say and do anything to get elected.
Romney has not swayed anywhere!! The only two that sway are Huckabee and McCain and they are both liberals.
Oh by the way Huckabee seems to be using your idols Bill playbook!
Do not Vote for Huckabee or McCain in SC or anywhere else!!
Posted by: spock | January 18, 2008, 9:36 am 9:36 am
Numbers USA seems to want to have things both ways. If they wanted their pledge to say ‘all the illegals go home’, it should have said that.
It didn’t.
Instead, what Huckabee seems to have signed is nothing more than an affirmation of the plan he’s been promoting for months.
Posted by: Jon | January 18, 2008, 9:50 am 9:50 am
This Spock guy is killing me with all the hate he has in heart for ol Huck.
First of all he is a phony phred supporter. Yes, that is same phlyover phred who travels from his pad in LA where he play phredrick of hollywood to his pad in the swamps of DC where he’s a hired gun (a lobbyist!) for foreign? govts.
phred (when’s he’s awake) is what’s wrong with govt. We don’t need a Washington lobbyist turned actor to be President. We need a guy from main street to take on the crooks on K street (phred’s former address).
Huck is just this guy.
Posted by: The Commander Guy | January 18, 2008, 9:56 am 9:56 am
Being an overweight person myself, I was personally impressed by Governor Huckabee’s weight loss feat: managing to lose over 100lb in one year, and perhaps more importantly to keep it off, requires a huge amount of personal discipline. Anyone who’s tried to lose more than 50lb, and keep it off, can testify to how much discipline and determination is needed to do that. I read an interesting article about Huckabee here – where his diet is summarized. Basically it has to do with a radical and permanent lifestyle change. Go Huckabee!
Posted by: Andrea Pelin | January 18, 2008, 10:00 am 10:00 am
“Promise them anything, but give them Arpège,” ran an old advertising campaign for perfume, and Gov, Huckabee, like any good politician, is doing the same by trying to woo voters with refinements on his positions. Not a surprising developmwnt, but what bears watching is to see how much his refinements vary from his stated positions in the past.
Posted by: chuck | January 18, 2008, 10:03 am 10:03 am
I am a blogger for Huckabee. In my caase, what that means is that I have carefully looked at everything he’s said and done for a year. Secondly, understand that I am a lifetime doctrinaire conservative.
From that persoective, I can confidently say that there is no inconsistency in Huckabee’s immigration stance. He has always rejected amnesty. However anyone labeled it, he opposed the bill Bush/McCain bill that failed to clear The Senate twice in 2007.
Perhaps much confusion arises from these well-documented facts: 1) He advicates for the integrity of the law and the integrity and order of immigration. But 2) He does NOT express his displeasure primarily with the immigrants who want to work, but rather with the government that has not maintained that integrity and order in the system.
As governor, he supported a measure (that failed) to allow the CHILDREN of illegal immigrants who had passed through Arkansas high-schools to apply for a merit scholarship program for college. He has not changed and does not change his thiinking about that.
And, as for his personal feelings about the Confederate flag, as a relatively studied Christian I can tell you that I believe the Christian position would be that South Carolinians should be circumspect about sticking something in the face of their neighbors that might deeply offend them.
But as an American, Huckabee is absolutely correct that it is not the federal government’s or anyone else’s business to interfere with South Carolina, in that regard.
Posted by: Larry Perrault | January 18, 2008, 11:09 am 11:09 am
Huckabee is an authentic conservative whose well-defined positions on the issues have never wavered. His misfortune is that he always speaks the truth, even when he knows it can be twisted and used against him. That’s because he’s placed his trust in Americans to see through the lies. Let’s not let him down.
Posted by: Righty Loosey | January 18, 2008, 12:18 pm 12:18 pm
“Huckabee is an authentic conservative”
Well said.
The problem around here is that Phred has sent some of his trolls over here to try convince people not to vote for Huck. Ordinarily this is OK in a campaign, but this time Phred is only trying peal away a few votes from Huck here and there to help McCain to win SC.
Posted by: The Commander Guy | January 18, 2008, 12:58 pm 12:58 pm
The “big lobby” crowd in Washington is playing us for fools once again. Instead of dropping the fed funds rate from 4.25% to the market rate of 3% promptly, the rates are being held high so the politicians can benevolently bestow $600 rebates of our money to us. Of course, they will do this by taking on more than $600 per person in new debt.
Huck is a supporter of the FairTax, which would raise the same revenue as the current system without all the silly twists and turns.
Yes, he is a true conservative. He believes in the freedom of the people!
Posted by: Jack K. Miller | January 18, 2008, 4:55 pm 4:55 pm
Mike Huckabee is our choice to be President; and, we’ll support him over the other candidates. As with Reagan and Bush II, Huckabee is being significantly underestimated by everyone. This will become evident as each primary occurs. Huckabee’s support will continue to build, even as the major establishment media and political control groups try to “contain” him. Let’s hope he gets Secret Service protection as soon as possible. The “best” future of the United States lies with Mike Huckabee at this point in history.
Posted by: Bob Jones | January 19, 2008, 11:01 am 11:01 am
Sorry, but as a long-time conservative, I will find myself voting for an Independent or Libertarian if Huckabee is their man. Fred was the best choice of all the weak choices.
Posted by: Tim Turner | January 19, 2008, 11:16 am 11:16 am
Without a doubt, Huckabee is the most dishonest campaigner in either party. All the dirty tricks and lies that surrounded his campaigns in Arkansas have surfaced again in IA and SC.
Huckabee”s only honest statement so far is that he “must have done something right” to be re-elected twice in a state controlled by the democracts. The “something right” that he did was running his office like a Democrat and his campaigns like a Clinton.
Posted by: Allan Stewart | January 19, 2008, 1:57 pm 1:57 pm
To Huckabee or not to Huckabee? COUNT ME ALL IN! I have not been so excited about a political candidate since Ronald Reagan. The more I see of this guy the more I like. I hope very much that the whole country will choose to “Huckabee” for the next eight years!
Posted by: michael litzau | January 19, 2008, 3:08 pm 3:08 pm
This is disgusting! How dare he speak of “freedom” then turn around and say he wants to remove any hope of freedom for so many Americans! No gay marriage, no abortions? The USA is not a baptist church! People should have the RIGHT to live as they choose! Who the hell is he to parrot “freedom” and insist on robbing people of rights?
I desperately hope he doesn’t make it in. If he does… I’m going for Canadian citizenship. I’ll not stand for that hypocrisy.
Posted by: Khana | January 19, 2008, 5:13 pm 5:13 pm
How is Huckabee wanting to take “freedom” away from people who want homosexual marriage? First of all, they currently don’t have the right, so he isn’t taking anything away. Secondly, throughout history until quite recently in Europe, religion defines marriage, not the state. If the church refuses to grant a homosexual marriage, then it is no business of government to force them to. And if it DOES become an issue of government, it will be a constitutional amendment ratified by the PEOPLE, not the president.
And the “freedom of abortion.” People will always have the freedom of abortion, just as they have the freedom to murder people. We all have free will. Abortion is the murder of a human entity; whether it is fully developed or not is irrelevant. A human fetus has never become something other than human. It has human DNA, and more than that, its DNA is unlike any other human, living or not. Therefore, abortion is murder (the forced end of an unwilling human life) and must be made illegal.
I hope everyone can see the nonsensical logic of people who say things like Khana, who spout what they hear in mainstream press, don’t think for themselves, and seek to tear down candidates using misquotations and quotes taken out of context rather than seeking out the truth about issues.
Posted by: fishpunk999 | January 19, 2008, 7:25 pm 7:25 pm
He makes me want to vomit. He is so full of hate! It would be scary to have that man be apart of anything, he needs a lot of help to deal with all that negativity and hate. I am not gay, but to think of a world without my brother and his partner and all their friends that have brought so much to my life and my whole families life, I can’t imagine it!
Posted by: Joanne | January 20, 2008, 3:01 pm 3:01 pm